Determination of arsenic in sandy soils.

The analysis of arsenic in soil requires a procedure which is capable of releasing microgram quantities from a complex matrix and eliminating interferences for a specific determination. Kingsley and Schaffert ( I ) have described microdetermination of arsenic in biological material, using concentrated hydrochloric acid for digesting the sample. Beard and Lyerly ( 2 ) have applied the selective extraction of As(II1) by benzene to separate arsenic from antimony and bismuth. Furthermore, atomic absorption spectrophotometry has been applied as one of the specific methods of determining arsenic ( 3 ) . Combining these procedures as a basis for our study, we have developed a procedure which is sensitive, reproducible, and suitable for analyzing a large number of sandy soil samples.